


Third Eye

by jaunepoi



Category: Star Trek, ダイヤのA | Daiya no A | Ace of Diamond
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death(s), Search and Rescue AU, Severe Injury, Telepathy, Trauma, You don't need to know about Star Trek to read this, everyone is a doctor besides sawamura au, miyuki is half-betazoid, more of a space AU with vocab from Star Trek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-08-22 10:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16595786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaunepoi/pseuds/jaunepoi
Summary: Star Trek AUKazuya commands an elite search and rescue team that saves Sawamura's life.Sawamura has to build a new life for himself after waking up to find his old life in tatters.Kazuya has a headache, and it's all Sawamura's fault.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love star trek as much as I love misawa. porque no los dos?

Eijun is ripped from sleep by the blaring wail of a red alert siren, his sleeping quarters suddenly pulsating red from the warning light above his door. As he sits up, he feels an unfamiliar tremble from the ship, the glass of water he had set on his nightstand rattling for a moment before settling.

  
Unnerved, he throws his covers off and darts toward the comm unit attached to his wall. The display is awake with the words RED ALERT slowly gliding across it in a loop, the phrase spelled out in several languages following it. He hadn't been paying much attention when he was given the tour of the ship and shown how to use the device by the security officer, too excited about getting to their destination to care all that much, but in this moment he very much wished he had. He taps the screen a few times, but there is no apparent change, the warning message staying put under his finger. Feeling a little foolish, he says “Computer, report,” but this too yields no forthcoming response. 

As he stands there willing the device to work, another tremble rocks the ship, this time strong enough to force Eijun to take a steadying step behind himself so he doesn't fall. Directly following the motion comes the unmistakable sound of the ship’s hull moaning under some unknown pressure. Fear sweeps through Eijun like wildfire as the alert switches from a siren to a voice. 

“Warning, collision alert. Brace for impact. Collision to occur in: 45 seconds. Warning, collision alert. Brace for impact. Collision to occur in: 40 seconds.”

Suddenly out of breath, Eijun gasps. He whips his head around, trying to locate the place where he is  _ supposed _ to brace for impact in the deep ominous red light his room is bathed in. Seeing none, he scrambles for his door and bursts into the ship's main hallway as the alert tells him he has 30 seconds to find something to hang onto. What's safe to hold onto? Should he brace himself in a doorway like an earthquake drill? Or is he supposed to stay in the open because he's in spa--

“Eijun!” He hears from behind him, interrupting his thoughts. He turns to find his mother rushing toward him, his father close behind. They look just as disheveled as he probably looks, no doubt woken violently by the alarms as he had been.

25 seconds. 

“What's happening? What do we do?” He says in a rush. There's a steady flow of panicked people rushing in both directions as they stand still in the hallway. “Which way do we..”

“Hell if I know,” his father grumbles, pushing Eijun and his mother in the direction they had been going at a slow jog, joining the flow of people deciding to go in the same direction. Eijun hopes it's the right one.

20 seconds. 

“Eijun, where is Wakana?” his mother asks. 

A jolt of panic shoots down his spine. “I...don't know! I don't remember her room number!” He looks around as though she might appear out of nowhere, but she does not. “Mom we have to find her!” He turns around to go back the way they’d come, but his father grabs him roughly around the shoulders and turns him back around.

“We can't--”

15 seconds. 

“--look for her now. Let's hope she's ahead of us,” he says, and it's the first time he's ever heard his father sound so desperate. Wakana is part of their family, his father considers her as close as a daughter. He's just as worried as Eijun, so he obeys his father's order and begins jogging faster.

A countdown begins as the 10 second mark is reached, and the ship is hit with another wave of unsteady trembles. Dead ahead, people are piling into a standard close-range transport shuttle, the kind they had used to travel from Earth to the ship. They run in, jumping the small gap where the shuttle is attached to the ship by some kind of flexible rubber Eijun had commented looked like an accordion when they’d first arrived. A security officer stands at the door, hand braced over the hatch control, waiting until the last moment to shut the compartment door, allowing as many people on as he can.

“Closing hatch in 3, 2, --”

“Wait!” A panicked yell draws everyone’s attention, and Eijun sees Wakana and her parents running with another group of people trailing behind her. They’re further down the hall. Far enough to make Eijun’s stomach turn sour. “Wait for us!” She yells.

The collision countdown reaches 5 seconds, and Eijun whips around, jumping back onto the ship to reach Wakana’s outstretched hand.

“Eijun,  _ no! _ ” He hears his mother cry, and then she screams, because the security officer pulls the door hatch, closing it in an instance and cutting off her anguished pleas.

“Mom!” He turns back around and bangs on the sealed airlock door that closed along with the shuttle. He hears the shuttle detach just as Wakana runs into him, grabbing at him desperately. A moment later, her parents shove them to the ground, covering them. Bracing them.

“2, Brace for immediate impact.”

A moment of stillness and calm washes over them as everyone braces, a collective breath held from all who did not enter the shuttle in time.

Then, chaos. An explosion of sound surrounds them as they’re flung from their prone position and slammed into the nearby wall. Someone’s elbow jabs directly into Eijun’s eye, but before he even has time to scream out in pain, he’s flung again to the ground and a pain he has never experienced rattles through his entire right arm. He takes a gasping breath, but that too hurts in a way he’s never felt. He can do nothing but lay there, being slammed around by whatever they’re colliding with, getting more injured with every passing second. The metal grating on the floor slices every bit of skin it touches as he slides across it over and over, his clothes shredding into strips. He feels it when his ankle breaks, but has no more capacity for pain, he simply acknowledges that it happened.

After what feels like a lifetime of torture, the relentless onslaught of collisions dissipates, and he’s left lying facedown, his nose scraped raw and bleeding from the grating. He can tell he hasn’t lost his vision, but still he cannot see anything. Everything around him is dark and silent. He hears no voices, but he’s not making any sound either, so he doesn’t think about it too much.

Another wave of trembles has him closing his eyes and tensing in a useless attempt at bracing himself again, but they aren’t nearly as violent. Whatever hits them this time only has enough impact to turn Eijun from facing down to facing up so that he’s looking at the ceiling. In an odd moment of awe, he sees that it’s not actually dark in the ship, it’s still running on emergency power, dim yellow lights illuminating the hallways just enough to not be pitch dark. He stares up, blinking lazily, unable to even turn his head. Small tremors keep rocking the ship, and with each small movement, his injuries scream at him, his breath hitches, and his muscles tense involuntarily. 

Someone far away from him coughs once, followed by a choking sound, and then silence. He can barely hear it. It’s the only sound he hears for the next hour. He wonders why his body is waiting so long to pass out. He’d love to sleep right about now, but his pain keeps him from doing just that. He decides to simply stare straight up, and count how many times he blinks until something happens.

\--

122 blinks later, something happens. A buzzing sound directly above him, or maybe slightly to his left, he can’t be sure. It buzzes for a time. It buzzes for 11 blinks. Then, the awful screeching sound of warping metal.

Voices follow that sound, which is the last thing Eijun expects.

“Could you cut a bigger hole next time, jackass? I can barely squeeze through here,” an exasperated male voice says where the buzzing noise had come from. The voice wasn’t speaking in Standard or Japanese, so Eijun was having trouble understanding. After thinking on the sounds for a moment, he recognized it as English.

“Not my fault you’re getting fat,” replies another male voice in English. “Life signs?”

“Scanning,” says the first. “Shit, right here. Like,  _ right _ here, Miyuki. This guy.”

A silhouette obscures his view of nothing, and then suddenly the brightest light he’s ever seen assaults his eyes, shooting pain up into his head. He clenches his eyes shut.

“Conscious, responsive to basic stimuli,” the same voice states, presumably to whoever Miyuki is, although he’s still facing Eijun. He hears the beeping of a tricorder roaming over his body, followed by a small gasp. “Damn, he’s critical. We need to beam him out, now.” He feels something being clipped to his shirt.

“Medical, this is Alpha sweep. Crit coming your way, acknowledge,” not-Miyuki says into a communicator, speaking in Standard this time.

“All clear, Alpha sweep, ready to receive, over,” he hears, the tinny voice coming out of both their communicators.

His view fills with a shiny haze, and suddenly he is no longer on the dark ship. He’s vaguely aware that he’s just been transported somewhere, but he still can’t see anywhere but straight up, and straight up is just more lights, so he closes his eyes. A rush of movement around him, and suddenly his body is being moved. He can’t take it. The pain shoots through his body and it feels a million times worse, somehow, like it was all happening at the same time, in this single moment. His head throbs and he feels his body go through huge waves and numbness and unbearable pain over and over.

“He’s seizing!” someone above him shouts. “Brace him down gently, he has a lot of fractures.” Strange strips of cloth are placed over his chest and knees. He hears an alarming number of hypospray hisses, but feels none of them. However, shortly after he hears them, he feels his pain dissipate dramatically. He lets out a deep sigh.

“Good, good. Deep breaths.” More tricorder beeps. “Minor. Convulsions stopped after 10 seconds, responding positively to medication. Alright, let’s get you attached to a drip.” The ceiling above him starts moving, and then stops moving. Someone lifts his left arm and roughly taps into the crook of his elbow a few times before he feels a prick in the same spot. Something gets clamped to his middle and index fingers. “I bet you’d like to sleep right about now, huh? Well my friend, you’re in luck. I’m the sandman,” a happy voice says, before another hypo hits his neck and the world floats away.


	2. Part 2

The full search of the Recreation class transport ship  _ Briar 8 _ takes the Medical Emergency Evacuation Service team a grueling three and a half hours across it's three personnel decks, as well as the lower engineering deck that combined with staff quarters. The ship had been on a return course to Earth, recently departed from the highly trafficked vacation planet Corenna. Its manifest showed a passenger crew of 316 with a staff crew of 53. Only 3 hours after it had departed, the  _ Briar 8  _ unknowingly warp-jumped into the remnants of a recently fought starship battle, large chunks of debri flying everywhere. The situation is what MEES have termed a  _ sneaker wave _ , a storm that comes when you least expect, giving you no time to retreat. The ship had only seconds before it was colliding with countless spinning chunks of starship, becoming debri itself in the process.

The structural integrity of the ship proved difficult to navigate, its corridors blocked off every few meters by caved in hull, warped metal, broken support beams, and exposed wiring. The bridge had been destroyed completely from the debri storm, its hull torn open and exposed to the vacuum of space. Its strategically placed airlocks, however, had stayed intact, giving anyone left on board after the debri storm a last fighting chance at survival. 

Navigating through such an unwelcoming environment was nothing new to either Kuramochi or Kazuya, but neither was it their ideal rescue scenario. Every second that passed as they cut through the endless obstacles in their path had them seeing the few lifesigns on board quickly dwindling into nothing. Kuramochi saw the small red lifesign indicator lights turning off erratically across the ship's schematic via his tricorder readout; Kazuya felt them in his mind, every flatline a build-up of anxiety until it popped like a bubble into thin air.

In the end, one lone survivor made it out among the hundreds of people they found. It was by far their worst save to loss ratio to date, and Kazuya didn't even know if the guy they beamed back had been stabilized. He could just as easily have died from shock, or transport trauma during beaming. He'd seen it happen before. As the alpha team lead and flagship scouting crew Commander, he had failed. But more than that, he had failed to be a sign of hope to the dying. They had heard Kazuya’s calls throughout the corridors, and he had felt their response of relief.  He also felt their fear and sadness as they died before he could reach them.

Unacceptable.

When they finally beam back aboard the Alpha team’s Med-Evac shuttle, they are shoved unceremoniously by a couple of bold ensigns into the pop-up hazmat shower that had been waiting for them. The dark muted yellow of the wrecked ship paired with their black EV suits had obscured exactly how much blood they were covered in. Now, in the brighter sterile LED pipe lights that line the the small shuttle cabin, he can see a bloody myriad of all colors across his knees and calves from kneeling in pools of it, his arms up to his elbows completely covered as he held bleeding arteries shut while Kuramochi did his best to clamp them, and smears all across his stomach and chest, no doubt from continuously wiping his hands off as they ran to the next lifesign reading.

They each step into the clear plastic-walled shower, a sheet of sealed plastic bisecting it into two so they can clean at the same time. An ensign zips the flimsy tent-like structure shut, and presses a button on an attached panel that vacuum seals it completely from the outside air.

Kuramochi looks at Kazuya through the plastic partition forlornly. “Always my favorite part,” he quips, turning his body to face the opposite direction. Kazuya hears him muffled through the plastic, but clear through the communicator inside his helmet. 

“Mine too,” he says as he mirrors Kuramochi's position. 

“Hands up!” the ensign says into the tinny speaker system feeding into the tent. They dutifully raise their arms up to shoulder width, lazily bent at the elbow.

“Rinsing,” says an automated voice, right before the familiar cold deluge of water splashes over their EV suits from shower heads above, below, and to their sides. Blood pools at their feet, mixing together into an indistinguishable dark color before it is syphoned out the back of the tent. They've been through this process countless times, but Kazuya can never suppress his flinch as the first chilling stream hits him. 

The rinse stops once it's reached 2 minutes. After a brief pause where they slick off the remaining water on their suits as best they can, they get back in place and wait for the syruppy disinfectant spray. It distorts Kazuya's vision as it slowly slides down his visor, the disinfectant turning white and foamy as it touches oxygen. Once they've both reached full snowman status, they are again rinsed. After that, they stand there and dry for 3 minutes, the weak air pressure one of Kazuya's pet peeves. 

They remove the suits and toss them into a biohazard bag for a more thorough decontamination once they get back aboard the  _ Pleiades. _ Then, they repeat the process over again, naked. 

\--

Once he's out of the shower and into a fresh EV suit, Kazuya opens a fleet-wide communication channel from within his helmet as he walks to the front of the ship.

“This is Commander Miyuki, all hands report, over.”

A string of affirmatives rattle across the line as he mentally catalogues the crew's overall status, closing his eyes in concentration to compensate for the crosstalk. When all teams are accounted for, he grants his navigation officer a quick nod, giving her the OK to start heading home. 

“We’re heading back, folks, let's get out of here. Cleanup crew, return to the  _ Pleiades  _ by 2100 hours. Everyone else, maximum warp. Alpha crew will be behind you, we're flying with a patient in critical condition on board, so as a precaution we’ll be traveling only at warp 2. I want a full med crew waiting for us at the dock when we arrive. Acknowledge.”

With another string of affirmatives and a final go-ahead, his 21 away teams begin warping away. He turns to his pilot.

“Just warp 1 for now, Lieutenant Armel. Let’s ease him into it.”

She winks at him and nods, chipper as always. “Aye, sir.  _ Ce sera un bon tour. _ ”  _ It will be a smooth ride.  _ Of that he has no doubt. Margot Armel has been his first choice navigator ever since she joined MEES 7 months ago as a scrawny 18-year-old Starfleet Academy dropout. She attached herself to Kazuya almost immediately, chatting his ear off day and night. He assumed it was because she was looking to jump rank and join Alpha team right at the get-go, but he later learned it was because he was the only MEES member who spoke “proper French, not zee nasty Standard version”. After he found that out, he always made a point to dumb down to Standardized French, or just speak to her in English to piss her off. She never falls for it, and it only made Kazuya like her more. She proved herself immediately, garnering attention from even the captain himself. Her navigation skills are one-of-a-kind, having grown up with inventors of the modern flight simulator as parents. They disapprove wholeheartedly of her transfer to MEES from Starfleet Academy, having built the simulators for ‘fleet ships in the first place, but she doesn’t give a shit, so Kazuya could care less. She’s a genius at flying, and he’s never felt safer than when he’s aboard a ship she’s piloting.

“Course laid in, let’s go home!” She chirps, and pulls them into Warp 1 so smooth not even Kazuya could feel it.

He turns away from the cockpit, buckling himself into one of the long benches lining either side of the upper deck of the ship, harness clips swaying lazily every few feet, waiting for more people to secure themselves if necessary. All Med-Evac away ships are small, only meant for a skeleton crew of eight people at most, but more commonly four or five to a shuttle. They currently have 5: Kuramochi, Armel, the two ensigns Lincoln and Paek, and himself. The ensigns are on the lower deck where the temporary sickbay is located, so the upper deck is empty aside from himself. He looks over to his left at the solitary jeffries tube that leads down to the sickbay, a ladder acting as its spine down its center so crew can reach both decks easily. The white sterile lights from the lower deck bleed up through the jeffries tube into the dark upper cabin, looking deceptively welcoming when Kazuya knows it to be exactly the opposite.

Kazuya has been avoiding dropping to the lower deck to check on the survivor. The nearly empty sickbay is something he really isn't ready to see.

He taps his communicator. “How is he, doc?”

“Oh, so it's 'doc’ now, huh? What's gotten into you, Miyuki? That's exceedingly flattering coming from you.”

Kazuya denies Kuramochi any kind of response. After a pregnant pause, Kuramochi sighs, giving in.

“Wonder boy down here is stable, but we’ve put him in a medically induced coma. He’s heavily injured. He's got more fractured bones than not, and a couple full breaks. We don't have skin regeneration abilities on board so we're resorting to temporary stitches for his lacerations. Retina damage in his right eye, and some internal bleeding from a broken rib, which we've stopped already. So to answer your question in simpler terms, I'd say he's probably had better days.”

“...Wow.”

“You're telling me. I haven't seen injuries like this in a while. This kid's tougher than nails.” Kuramochi sighs again, this time much less amused. “Lone survivor on a recreation ship leaving a vacation planet, huh. His whole family may have been on there, Miyuki...We don’t know how he’ll react when we wake him up, but it won’t be good. I’m hesitant to even have you on the same  _ ship  _ as him when he wakes up, with the amount of raw emotions he’s going to be pummeling you with.”

“I can handle it,” he replies crisply.

“Yeah, you always say that,” Kuramochi grumbles. “And yet, who am I always having to inject with neuro-suppressants so he can sleep at night? So he can even  _ perform his duties? _  None other than our fearless half-Betazoid telepathic commander who refuses to accept the shortcomings of his own physiology, of course. One of these days, Miyuki, I pray you’ll get it through your thick skull that I’m trying to  _ help _ you, not kick you to the curb.”

“Gonna pull rank and drop me off at the nearest starbase,  _ Chief _ ?”

“If you keep acting like a stubborn asshole after every rescue, I just might,  _ Commander _ .”

Kazuya chuckles softly. It's a conversation they've had many times. Wounded survivors after traumatic experiences aren't generally they type of people telepaths should be around, let alone actively seeking them out like he does. Traumatized minds are easily comparable to physical harm for telepaths, and the closer in proximity they are, the worse the pain gets. Kazuya is only half Betazoid, so his telepathic senses are weakened to just feeling others emotions, rather than hearing their thoughts, but the pain is no more tolerable than that of a full Betazoid. Kuramochi keeps an eye on him at all times because of this, even though he's lived this reality his whole life, has chosen this job of his own free will, and he does  _ not _ need a babysitter. But to sway the mind of his Chief Medical Officer would be just as easy as moving a mountain with his bare hands. 

“Just let me know when you're going to wake him and I'll move to the opposite side of the ship and hypo myself with the strongest stuff you've got. That good enough?” 

There's a pause over the communication line where Kuramochi switches from English to Standard to instruct one of the ensigns to stitch a laceration tighter, but then continues his conversation easily. “No, sir, definitely not good enough. It's going to be a double hypo and confinement to the psy-null quarters until I release you personally.”

The psy-null quarters dampen telepathic transference by almost a 3rd. In layman's terms, it's a telepathic time out room. Along with the neuro-suppressants, he'd feel almost nothing but his own emotions.

Kuramochi interrupts Kazuya's frustrated reply. “Don't fight me on this, Miyuki. He's going to need my attention more than you. I gotta know you won't be collapsed somewhere with blood coming out of your ears because you didn't listen.”

“I'm a doctor too, you know. I can watch out for myself.”

“Okay,  _ one _ , you can't be your own doctor, dipshit. That's like rule one in the doctor manual.”

“Ah yes, the  _ doctor manual _ we all know and love.”

“ _ Two _ ,” he continues, “you have proven to me you can't take care of yourself, not even a bit, even if you  _ are _ a doctor. You're still a risk-taking manchild with too much adrenaline for your own good.”

“You got any evidence of that?”

“Uh,  _ yeah _ , it's called your entire medical record, Miyuki. You should check it out sometime, it's a good read.”

“Ha ha  _ ha _ . Okay, I object to almost everything you've said in this conversation, for the record, but I'll do the double hypo. It's as good a deal as you're getting, Kuramochi. Take it or leave it.”

He hears the exasperated sigh from his friend that he's heard a thousand times before. Victory is sweet.

“Hey. Think we can jump to Warp 2 yet? It's been about 10 minutes at one,” Kazuya asks, swiftly changing the subject to avoid further interrogation. 

“Should be fine. His vitals are steady now.”

“Thank god,” he says, tapping his communicator to sever the channel. He turns toward the cockpit. “Warp 2, Armel. Let's get this thing cruising from a trot to a canter.”

“Oui, sir. Warp 2.”

Thanks to Armel's steady hand, Kazuya doesn't feel the increase in speed at all. He leans back on the bench and readies himself for a very boring 6 hour trip home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For people not in the Star Trek fandom, Betazoids look exactly like humans except for their eyes. Their irises are always completely black (not the full eye, just the iris), and Miyuki has inherited this trait. 
> 
> Also, although Miyuki is an alpha commander, the CMO (Kuramochi) will always outrank him if he deems him unfit for duty and can remove him from command with due cause.


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> miyuki kazuya's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

The _USS_ - _Pleiades_ is a retired Starfleet vessel, _Intrepid_ -class, that was reacquired by MEES after a petition with the Admiralty. It took three years for the MEES engineers to tear out the ship’s innards and replace it with new structures that fit the necessary specifications of their rescue missions, and it now resembled nothing like the ship it once was. Of its original 15 long, narrow decks, two more were added as additional shuttle bays for 85 Med-Evac shuttles to dock in. The additional decks are considerably larger than the original shuttle bays, giving the middle of the ship a wing in each direction and creating the cross shape most people now associate with MEES. Directly below the shuttle bays lay the sickbay decks, two in total with a hold capacity of 500 humanoid persons. Above the shuttle bays is where the ship takes on more of its original design with a mess hall, a couple decks of crew and recovery patient quarters, a number of gyms serving different purposes, and the bridge. It is an engineering achievement to say the least, and there is no other ship in the galaxy like her.

For the past 9 years, Kazuya has called her home.

When Armel drops them out of warp within view of the _Pleiades_ , their comm lines burst to life as Ops personnel guide them to the proper docking port from their stations on the bridge. The dock is split in two, matching the two levels of their shuttles so medical can disembark separate from the other away team members and head straight to sickbay. At the familiar hiss of the hatch dropping, Kazuya hears the clicking of fasteners, letting him know Kuramochi is securing his patient for transport. He hurries over to the jefferies tube and shouts down to him, “Dinner later?”

He waits patiently, leaning a hip on the metal railing around the chute, as Kuramochi gives orders to the medical staff that have been waiting outside the shuttle as requested. After the patient has been successfully transferred off the shuttle, the doctor appears at the other end of the tube, familiar tired eyes looking up at him.

“If you’re still awake at 2300, sure,” he says and shrugs.

“That late? Isn’t your shift almost over?”

“My shifts are _never_ over. Wonder boy’s not the only guy in my care, remember? Half my sickbay is still full of teenage Cardassians.”

“Ah,” Kazuya nods, as though just now remembering. “Forgot about them.”

Kuramochi rolls his eyes and scoffs. “No, you didn't.”

Kazuya simply smirks, tapping his temple with his finger in a clear sign of _Of course I didn't._

“Smartass. Go change out of your EV suit before our lovely lady passengers ambush you again.”

He flips Kuramochi off as he pushes off the railing to disembark from the upper deck into the chaos he calls home. Finally off the shuttle, he reaches behind his neck to release the clasp of his helmet, tugging its mesh lining out from his thermal undershirt and pulling it off his head. The cool air of the shuttle bay touching his sweat-damp hair sends a small chill down his spine before he can suppress it.

“Sir.”

Kazuya jumps, unaware that someone had been near him. To his left, a vaguely familiar face stands at attention next to the main turbolift entrance from the hanger, a PADD tucked neatly under his left arm. He briefly glances at the pips on his uniform collar before addressing him.

“Ah, at ease, Lieutenant…”

“Furuya. Sir,” he replies softly, shoulders relaxing as he lowers his saluting arm to his side.

“Lieutenant Furuya, right. You transferred on just recently, didn’t you? Back at Starbase 88?” They had been there just a week ago re-supplying. It was a small starbase, not many permanent residents, but Kazuya had found it pleasant. Everyone there was content, and it soothed his mind to be around them.

This guy seems pretty damn content. He looks, and feels, like he’s about to fall asleep. There’s a strange underlying feeling of awe that seems to have no basis, so Kazuya ignores it.

“Yes,” is his simple reply.

Kazuya gives him what he hopes is a stern enough look to wake him up. “Well alright, Furuya. What brings you down to greet me after such a long flight?”

He lifts his PADD and holds it toward Kazuya. “Transfer orders. From the Captain. I’m your new Point.”

Frozen in place for a moment, Kazuya just stares at him, hoping he had misheard. But Furuya makes no move to explain himself further, or to lower the PADD. Setting his helmet absently to the ground, Kazuya snatches the device out of the Lieutenant’s hand and punches in his command passcode, navigating quickly to his priority inbox where all high-ranking correspondence is sent and received. Among the dozens of as-of-yet unopened messages around this latest mission, there is a single message flagged red, indicating a direct correspondence from the Captain that requires a response. He brings the PADD close to his face, squinting at the words without his glasses.

They were indeed transfer orders.

_Beginning tomorrow at 0600, Furuya Satoru is to report for Alpha shift duty under the direct command of Acting Commander Miyuki Kazuya. Rank: Lieutenant, Position: Scouting Point to Alpha Team Commanding Officer._

He reads the message several times, a scowl taking over his authoritative demeanor. His eyes keep catching on the use of _Acting Commander,_ when he is obviously no longer a temporary replacement. Most likely the data had just come from an outdated roster, but it stings nonetheless. A year ago, _he_ had been the Alpha Scouting Point, under the command of Takigawa Chris Yuu. But Chris had taken a risk and paid for it. He’d syphoned the last of his oxygen into a dying woman’s cracked helmet to save her. He’d made it back to the shuttle, but not in enough time to prevent brain damage. He now works with the bridge team in Ops, unable to use the left side of his body and therefore unfit for field command. As the next highest-ranking officer, Kazuya had relieved him of his position.

He would give absolutely anything for Chris to take his command back. He respected him more than anyone on this ship, even more so than the Captain. Kazuya had been his Point. His partner. He should have _been there._ He regrets it more than anything, his inability to turn back time or switch places. But, as he has been continuously reminded over the years, life isn’t fair, so he now outranks his own Commander. The term _Acting Commander_ is tinged with the ever-unsaid _You don’t belong here._ Bullshit. Kazuya _does_ belong in command. If Chris can’t come back to this team, then he’s going to make damn sure it stays just as bold and fearless and disciplined as it had been before he left. He’s done that. He’s made an even _better_ team, and Chris approves wholeheartedly.

Aside from the small fact that, although he’s been in command for a year, Kazuya has yet to take on a Point of his own.

“So it would seem,” Kazuya mumbles, eyes still trained on the PADD. “Is that all, Lieutenant?”

Furuya holds his hand out, requesting his PADD be handed back. Kazuya lets him take it. “That’s all, sir.”

“Right. Well then,” he pauses to clear his throat, blank his mind and put his game face back on. “0600 tomorrow you are to meet me in the Alpha ready room with the rest of the team. If you’re late, you’re off my team. If you’re out of uniform, you’re off my team. If you haven’t read the debrief well enough to where you can recite it back to me, _you are off my team_. Your training will start after our meeting, so get some sleep tonight.”

Furuya, slightly more awake in reaction to his commanding voice, simply nods. Kazuya stares at him for a long moment before nodding and gesturing that he may return to wherever he had come from. Furuya turns around, the turbolift’s doors sliding open at his near proximity as he re-enters. Before they can shut, Kazuya holds them back with his hand, catching Furuya’s attention.

“Let's get something straight, Furuya. You and me? We're not partners. This team _saves lives._ In order for us to do that successfully, we have to live and breathe as though we’re the same person. That doesn't happen overnight, and it certainly doesn't happen just because I'm forced to accept these orders.” He turns around briefly, gesturing to his Med-Evac shuttle before refocusing on Furuya. “There is no way in _hell_ I’m letting you set foot in one of those until I know I can trust you. Right now I _don’t_ . I don’t even know who you are. It’s your job to fix that. Your orders may say you’re my Point, but on my team your position is _earned_ ,” He lets go of the turbolift doors. As they slide shut, he glares daggers into Furuya. “So earn it.”

Once the lift shoots off and Kazuya feels Furuya’s uncomfortable dread drift further away, he allows himself a low sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. _What was the Captain thinking?_

As he’s bending down to pick his helmet up, he feels the toe of a boot tap his thigh.

“Hey,” Armel greets, her loud voice echoing in the acoustic hanger. Like him, she’s still in her EV suit, sans helmet, her dark skin pairing much nicer with the green material than his pale complexion ever will.

Once he’s standing, a full foot taller than her, she grins up at him and hands him his glasses. “You left them on the locker room bench again. I will throw them in the trash next! You don’t need these.”

“I really do,” he says with a smile, everything coming back into focus as he puts them on. His helmet has a prescription visor, but in these brief moments where he’s not wearing helmet or glasses, everything blurs around the edges. “I have really bad eyesight.”

“You are so weird! No one wears those old fashioned things, you’re like a grandmother. Kuramochi can fix your eyes in one minute. You know this.”

He nods. “I know this.”

“Then why do you always insist on wearing the glasses?”

He gives her his best shit eating grin. “The ladies love ‘em. You don’t agree?”

She huffs, rolling her eyes and flapping her had to shoo him further away. “You are insufferable, Commander. Fine, have bad eyes. I do not care. Who was the guy?” She gestures to the turbolift.

He sighs, deflating a bit. “That was Lieutenant Furuya. He’s…well, he’s my new Point.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “ _Pardon?_ You said he is a _Point?!_ ” 

“Direct orders from the Captain.” He shrugs, walking away from the turbolift in the direction of the locker room, helmet under his arm. He hears Armel take a few quick steps to catch up and walk beside him, projecting shock very reminiscent of his own from just a minute earlier. “Nothing I can do about that.”

“You can submit an appeal! Or at least talk to him, or do _something_ instead of just...just-” She makes a frustrated gesture, clearly struggling to articulate herself in Standard, “You cannot just _be okay_ with it!”

“I don’t have a choice in this. There’d be no point in disputing the orders, the Captain’s been breathing down my neck as it is. He knows I’ve been avoiding taking on a Point, even though it’s against protocol.” As they reach the entrance of the locker rooms where they split between men’s and women’s areas, Kazuya turns to face her. “Apparently the grace period is over.”

“This is not how it should be, though. Why can’t he have _you_ decide, instead of...giving us this _guy_ . It’s dangerous, Miyuki. This Lieutenant Furuya, who is he? I do not know, and you do not know. He is risky. _Non_ , I mean, he is a risk. To all of the team.”

“Yeah,” Kazuya agrees gravely, “I let him know as much. I just hope it sinks in.”

“I do not like it,” she says, crossing her arms defiantly.

“That’s the general consensus, yeah. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, just get some sleep tonight. Don’t worry about me.”

“I am always worrying about you!” She says emphatically, flinging her arms in the air.

He gives her a small smile and places a calming hand on top of her head. She’d shaved her hair off recently, and the small barely-there hairs feel prickly to his touch. Nonetheless, he still ruffles it around endearingly, acting like the annoying older brother he wishes he was.

He switches to French, hoping it will help to calm her down. “When you worry,” Kazuya tells her, poking at his own head, “it hurts me, remember? So don’t.”

She looks up at him sadly from under his hand, moving her own up to touch his temple. “What if he hurts you? In here,” she drums her fingers lightly against his head. “We know you, Commander. Alpha knows you. Our minds are compatible. His isn’t.”

“Not _yet_ ,” he reminds her. “You didn’t know at first either, remember? My ears were ringing for weeks after you got here.”

“Yes, well,” she says, her hand falling back to her side as she breaks eye contact, “I’m not the one who’s been put in charge of your safety.”

“Margot, you know that’s not what a Point’s job is. I’d never put someone at risk to ensure my safety. I’d quit if that were the case. He’s a tactical officer and trauma specialist, just like me. There’s just going to be two of us now.” He sighs, shrugging. “It’ll be different. That’s really all I can say.” He leaves with that, turning and walking into the locker room. He can feel her worry like a rope pulled taut in his mind for a long moment before it finally dissipates as she moves away.

 

\--

 

At his locker, Kazuya peels the deep green EV suit off his body. It’s form fitting, like a second skin, and removing it is never an elegant process. He’s glad there aren’t many crew members left in the room. The less people seeing him trip as he awkwardly strips out of the body suit, the better.  Once it’s off, he zips it in a bio-haz bag and tosses it down the decontamination chute attached to the wall.

When he finally makes it into the shower, he selects the hot water setting, as opposed to the usual sonic shower. It’s a luxury he feels he’s earned after the day he’s had. The tension that had been building up over the past 10 hours slowly eases from his muscles as the hot water relaxes his body. He stands there for a few blissful minutes making no move to clean himself, just standing in the hot spray to enjoy it. When he feels the last of the day’s mental exhaustion wash down the drain, he picks up his soap and washes himself, fully pleased that no chemicals are involved in this particular shower routine.

Afterward as he’s toweling off, an ensign from Ops jogs up to him, saluting briefly and looking appropriately apologetic. “Commander. Sorry to interrupt, sir, I know you’ve only just returned.”

“What is it?” He asks with a resigned sigh, grabbing his glasses and shoving them back on. They immediately fog up from the heat of his skin, so he pushes them up to sit on top of his head and resorts to staring at a blurry version of the ensign.

“We’ve received word from the Alpha clean-up crew, sir. A transport shuttle that belonged to the wrecked ship was found on the other side of the debris storm, about three klicks from the collision site. It looks as though an escape was made by some passengers before the storm, but they didn’t leave soon enough to escape the debris.”

Kazuya’s eyebrows shoot up. “What? How did we miss that?”

“I’m...not certain, sir. Their report only said they had found it.”

“Are we sure there are people on the shuttle? It could have just been broken off from the rest of the ship during the collision.”

The ensign looks at a PADD he’d brought with him. “Readings show lifeforms aboard, but the report doesn’t say whether there are any left alive. They’re towing it in with a tractor beam, apparently.”

“Towing the shuttle? _Here?_ Why the he--,” he closes his eyes, clenching his fists to compose himself. “Get me a direct line with Hooper, ensign. Soon as you can get the channel stable I want him in my ear.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Dismissed. _Christ,_ ” he says, the last whispered under his breath. The ensign hurries out with his orders, leaving Kazuya standing in the middle of a now empty locker room with another headache coming on.

He quickly dresses into his standard MEES blacks, pulling back his wet hair into a messy knot at the nape of his neck and returning his glasses to their proper spot. After cleaning up his things, he closes his locker and walks to a comm panel at the entrance to the room. He taps the channel to sickbay 1. “Miyuki to Doctor Kuramochi.”

“What’s up, Commander?” Kuramochi replies after a moment.

“Headache,” Kazuya tells him.

Kuramochi hums absently over the line. “You’re overdue for a suppressant by about an hour. Come on down.”

He walks across the hanger to the medical turbolifts that only run from the shuttle bays to the sickbays, nodding politely to the early rising pilots and engineers of the Beta shift milling about. He enters the turbolift and, a second later, exits 2 floors below into sickbay 1. Kuramochi is waiting for him near the front counter, lazily tossing and catching the hypo he’s about to be injected with. As he approaches, Kuramochi smirks. “Oh _wow_ , very sultry with the wet hair. Is this what it’s like to fall in love?”

“Ass,” he replies, scooping his hair out of the way to let Kuramochi press the hypo at the tender skin behind his right ear. He hears the familiar hiss and feels a slight pressure where the medication enters, and then Kuramochi is pulling away again. “I didn’t have time to dry it after this news from the clean-up crew. You hear about the shuttle they found?”

“Yeah, what’s that about? Why’s Hooper bringing it here?”

“That’s what I’m hoping to find out. Probably going to have to rain check our midnight dinner until we figure out what this whole mess is about.”

“Always standing me up,” Kuramochi says, fake-pouting before breaking into his familiar cackle. “I guess I’ll meet you up in the hanger when they arrive.”

“Yeah,” Kazuya agrees. As he’s walking toward the standard turbolift that will take him up to his quarters, he continues, “Oh, and guess what? Alpha’s got a Point, starting tomorrow.”

Kuramochi’s shocked face is the last thing he sees before the lift shuts and shoots him upward.

 

\--

 

Kazuya dines in the mess hall with a mix of crew members from Alpha shift taking late dinners and Beta shift eating their breakfasts. He makes polite conversation with the people surrounding him, enjoying the comfortable calm everyone puts forth just after they wake and before they turn in. That, and the telepathy suppressant, soothe his headache away easily enough.

He eats his meal quickly, knowing the away team will be within direct communication range soon, although he's unsure of what time difference the ship in tow will cause. After he's finished and cleared his dishes, he heads to the bridge to meet up with Chris and see if there's been any other correspondence with the crew. And if the Captain happened to be free for a chat, well wouldn't that be a lovely coincidence?

As the turbolift doors open onto the bridge, the navigation officer eyes him from his station for a moment before announcing, “Commander on the bridge.” The other officers ranking lower than himself turn to him with formal nods before returning to their work. Chris's gaze, located near the rear of the bridge, lingers knowingly. Kazuya inclines his head slightly at the room before heading over to his station.

“You can just comm me, you know,” Chris greets softly as he draws near, his voice and smile distorted slightly by the down-pull of the left side of his body.

“And miss our bonding time? Hardly.”  He stands behind Chris as he turns back to his station, leaning over his shoulder with interest. “Tell me they're close.”

“They are. Six minutes give or take and we can establish a connection.” He points at a heading on the map screen. “This is where the debris interference clears completely. Unless there's something off about that shuttle that might jam our signal, we should be clear once they reach this point.”

“ _Everything_ is off about that shuttle. Why are they towing it in?”

“Survivors unable to transport, maybe?” Chris suggests.

“Not likely. If Hooper had found any lifesigns, he would have reported them. I can't wrap my head around it. Makes me nervous.”

After a quiet moment of watching the blinking sensor inch closer to the heading he had pointed out, Chris angles himself to look at Kazuya. It would have been a full-on glare of annoyance a year ago, but the accident has deadened his expressions, the light gone from his eyes. The corner of Kazuya's mouth turns down in a frown. “Hovering makes _me_ nervous, Miyuki. Go do what you came here to do. I'll comm you when we have them on the line.”

Kazuya rolls his eyes back at him before turning and walking to the Captain's ready room. He pins in his access code and is granted clearance a moment later. Stepping into the room, the Captain's glare is already trained on him from behind his desk. Once the doors close behind him, he stands at attention, hands behind his back. “Captain Kataoka, sir,” he greets.

“Miyuki. I expected you'd come. Sit,” he gestures to one of the chairs in front of his desk. The Captain's expression gives Kazuya no hint as to whether his visit is welcome. It never does. He sits.

“Sir, I have no intention of arguing your orders. I only want to know why you've assigned me someone I've never met. There are plenty of capable members on Alpha already.”

He's met with silence, but says nothing further. The Captain is too well trained for even Kazuya to read his emotions. His mental shields are as unbreakable as they come, so Kazuya can only guess at what could be happening behind his sharp gaze. His intuition tells him to hold out and stay quiet.

After a few more tense moments, the Captain replies, “Plenty of capable members you refuse to take on as your Point.”

He shakes his head. “I don't refuse them, I simply don't find it necessary to _have_ -”

“What you _find_ necessary is subjective and irrelevant, Commander. We have a chain of command, and you've been abusing it based on personal preference for a year.”

Kazuya bristles at that. “I'm aware of that sir, but you are also aware of how well the team has done in the past year. Our numbers are consistent to before Comman--, _Officer_ Takigawa was reassigned.”

The Captain sighs. “This isn't about the numbers, Miyuki. Although it very well could be, with your latest mission. Or do I need to remind you of _those_ numbers?”

Properly chastised, Kazuya breaks eye contact to stare at his feet. “...No, sir.”

“Good. Once you've contacted every next of kin to the deceased on that ship, then we can have a conversation about numbers. No Miyuki, this is about insubordination.”

Kazuya's eyes snap back to his in an instant. “You know I would _never--_ ” but he is stopped when Kataoka puts a hand up.

“Your intentions, although self-serving, have never been in retaliation against my captaincy. I know. But I cannot allow my command to come under scrutiny because I've allowed something like this to happen. The Admiralty is sure to be suspicious of such an important position being consistently unfilled for a year. My hands are tied. You're getting a Point.”

Kazuya sighs, nodding after a moment to accept his inevitable defeat on the topic. “Alright. Then why this Lieutenant Furuya? I’ve never heard of him. I’m supposed to play nice with a complete stranger?”

The Captain swivels the monitor on his desk so that Kazuya can view it. He pulls up a short message, addressed to the Captain from Furuya. “This is the eighth message he's sent me in as many days. It's become clear he has a single goal in mind. Working with you.”

“That's uh…that’s interesting,” Kazuya says, struggling to find the right word as he eyes the message blankly. As the Captain says, it simply states the Lieutenant's insistence to work with him. “Why am I the center of attention?”

“Apparently an article was put out some months ago about your command of the _Montari_ kidnapping mission. The Lieutenant's older sister was one of those rescued by your team.”

Kazuya frowns. He remembers the incident well. A group of 85 women had been abducted from a newly formed colony on the planet _Montari,_ to be sold on a slave market in a nearby sector. Kazuya had lead a rare stealth mission with a crew of 9 others to extract the victims from the kidnapper's ship. He had likely spoken to Furuya's sister at least once, then, as he had been part of the counseling efforts once they had been transported back to the Pleiades. But to request to work under the command of someone who had saved a family member...

Kazuya looks at the Captain in disbelief. “But...sir, that's _hero worship_. He’ll thinks he owes me something! I can't command someone who puts me up on a pedestal, it'll get him killed!”

The Captain nods. “He's green. I don't expect him to be out on actual missions for a while. You two are going to train together. Hard. He has to learn that his job doesn't revolve around you, and you need to learn to work with a Point at your side.” He raises his hands in a small shrug before clasping them together and resting them on his desk. “I expect you to make it work, Commander.”

Kazuya barely suppresses a scoff. “ _Still--_ ”

He's cut off suddenly by the trill of his communicator. Chris's voice interrupts. “Commander, the clean-up crew is within range. Lieutenant Hooper has been hailed and is awaiting your response.”

“Acknowledged. Thanks Chris,” he says before turning his attention back to the Captain. “With your permission?” he asks, rising out of his chair as an indication he wishes to leave. Kataoka nods, and Kazuya turns around in a rush to get to back to the Ops stations.

“Miyuki,” the Captain says, stopping him. He turns around mid-step, eyebrows raised in question.

“When you first joined on as Point under Chris,” he says, a knowing look in his eye, “your admiration of him very closely resembled hero worship, if I remember correctly.”

Unsure of how to respond to that, Kazuya stays silent, his confusion shown clearly on his face.

After a moment, the Captain gestures to the door. “Dismissed.”

 

\--

 

Back on the bridge, Chris spots him and tosses an earpiece his way. He shoves it in his ear and slides the small toggle on its side to open the comm line frequency Chris had already hailed.

“Hoops, you better have an _outstanding_ explanation for dragging that graveyard back with you,” he says harshly.

“In reference to our purpose for towing the vessel, sir, that happens to be an apt metaphor,” replies the android. “The crew and I have taken blood samples of all deceased aboard the _Briar 8_ and cross-referenced with the ship's manifest, as is standard protocol _._ We successfully ID'd all but 16 persons not found aboard the ship, keeping in mind the bridge crew would not be counted, as they had been lost to open space. Pairing that with the single missing transport shuttle lead us to search for its whereabouts in the nearby vicinity of the storm. We located it several klicks from the initial impact site, but the shuttle too had suffered immense damage. The life forms inside count 16, completing the manifest. None on board are alive, Commander.”

Kazuya closes his eyes, the last glimmer of hope that more had survived vanishing into thin air. He removes his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “So why are you bringing it here?”

“Two reasons, sir. The first being the shuttle's disfiguration. It's hatch has welded shut from a combination of friction caused by the debri, as well as the shuttle's reactor core overloading. This means that the cabin is flooded with radiation that our team was not able to expel, thus we were not able to board and accurately ID the deceased with the tools at our disposal. The second reason is that, through a process of elimination and proper identification of the survivor provided by Doctor Kuramochi, we have determined that two of the deceased on board are relatives of the survivor, likely a father and mother. Through my studies of human psychology, it is my understanding that to see visual evidence of a past traumatic event can sometimes provide a mental 'closure’ of feelings surrounding said event. This is why we have brought the shuttle with us, Commander.”

Hooper's clinical explanation of the events and reasonings makes Kazuya's stomach turn, even though he knows it's simply how the android is programmed to relay information. His mind unconsciously recoils, an automatic response to a fear beginning to bubble up at the forefront of his thoughts. Hooper is bringing the kid’s dead parents on board for _show-and-tell_. It’s not what he’d been expecting to hear.

“I...suppose I see the logic in your reasoning, Lieutenant,” he says faintly.

“We will be arriving in ten minutes, sir, in shuttle bay 2.”

“Alright. We'll meet you down there.”

“Aye, sir. Hooper out.”

Chris, who had been listening to the conversation in his own earpiece, looks at Kazuya with sad eyes. “Closure, huh? I'm not sure _closure_ is what he's towing, Miyuki.”

“Yeah. I...yeah,” he says, staring out at nothing, not quite able to say how he feels just yet.

Chris, of course, can read him almost as well as Kazuya can read Chris. “You should take shore leave before he wakes up. Being around him might cause some serious damage.”

A humorless laugh escapes him. “The kid's been through hell. He'll be living with those emotions every day, for the rest of his life. The fact that I can run away from that is a luxury he'll never be able to afford. What kind of empath would I be if I refuse to offer empathy? No, I'm gonna stay. It'll hurt, but the guilt would kill otherwise.”

Chris stares at him for a long moment before giving him a slow nod, hands clasped between his knees as he swivels back and forth in his chair, the tension of words he's not saying clear in his posture. Overwhelming concern bleeds from him.

He hands Chris the earpiece and strides swiftly over to the turbolift, wanting to be alone to sort through his tumultuous thoughts. As the doors slide shut, he lets out a shuddering breath. The fear he had started to feel earlier suddenly hits him at full force, and the anxiety causes his wrists to shake.

Was he afraid for himself, or for the survivor? The lines were strangely blurry. Whatever the outcome was going to be, it would affect them both. In fate's cruel irony, Kazuya will have to experience second-hand the loss of a family.

A feeling he is all too familiar with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! up next: sleeping beauty wakes up


	4. Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, this was a tough one to write. Brace yourselves.

Kazuya stares up at the mangled mess of a passenger shuttle sitting at an awkward angle in the hangar, and feels sick. It looks more like a wadded up piece of paper than a vehicle. He can see dozens blackened scorch marks where pieces of debri had skimmed across the hull like a match flicked across a matchbox, and dozens more indentations from direct impacts. There are no more flat surfaces for it to sit upon, so it’s been tipped to the side, precariously standing on two jagged points of metal. Kazuya thinks, if he were to push it, it would topple right off the ship.

It’s unthinkable that within that wretched thing are bodies just as mutilated as the shuttle. He averts his eyes, feeling wave after wave of shame wash over him. Not just from himself, but from Kuramochi as well, who is standing beside him and taking in the sight of the shuttle like a physical blow. Kazuya can think of nothing to say.

He turns his gaze to Hooper, who is standing silently to Kuramochi’s left and looking at nothing in particular. 

“I don’t want anyone else knowing about this,” he tells him, breaking the suffocating silence. “I want it covered and I want a barrier shield surrounding it. No one but you, me and Kuramochi is to have access.”

Hooper nods, and dips into a small bow. “Understood, Commander. I’ll have it shielded within the hour.” 

“Alright. You’re dismissed,” Kazuya says, his gaze reluctantly returning to the wreckage as Hooper’s heavy footsteps echo his departure.

_ Visual evidence of a past traumatic event, _ he thinks, remembering back to Hooper’s words.

“This is…,” Kuramochi begins, “...I can’t imagine how this will bring him any kind of closure.”

Kazuya thinks about him mom, and says, “Closure is different for everyone. We can’t decide what’s best for him.”

Kuramochi makes a noncommittal noise, clearly unhappy. Without any preamble, he turns and walks away, mumbling something about finishing some work before going to bed.

Kazuya stays, looking at the shuttle as though it might speak to him. He wonders if the 16 people inside are recognizable, or whether they were so torn apart they no longer resemble anything but pulp.

The shuttle remains silent, giving Kazuya no hint of what lies within.

 

\--

 

Furuya Satoru is frustratingly good at his job. Every drill that Kazuya has him run he completes with little to no errors, and he has a natural talent for perfect timing. His faults lay in his communication skills. He barely speaks, and when he does, his voice is too soft to be able to hear over a comm line full of crosstalk. 

They’ve been training together for a week, with the team and privately. Privately to get Furuya up to speed on emotional control for Kazuya’s sake, and with the larger group to introduce him into the chaos of emergency situations. He takes pressure extremely well, it turns out, sometimes flourishing under the additional stress. Kazuya finds himself motivated as well, this new stress of needing to work seamlessly with another person keeping his mind sharp. He’s not sure if he likes Furuya yet, but he appreciates Furuya’s dedication to following his orders. He’s aiming to earn his place on the team, bit by bit.

Today they’re with the whole team on Deck 7, practicing jumps in Zero-Grav from one side of the gym to the other, the space between littered with floating debris. The lights have been turned off completely, leaving them in darkness aside from the small LEDs attached to their suits. The synthetic debris twists and turns slowly as the focused light passes over them, casting moving shadows onto the far walls. 

“Alright Furuya,” Kazuya says softly, his voice sounding tinny through the helmet’s comm line. “Remember, like diving into a pool. Streamline your body and lunge forward as hard as your legs will push you.”

Furuya nods at Kazuya’s instructions, barely visible in the darkness, and steps to the edge of the metal platform. He bends low and grabs hold of the platform’s edge, waiting for the signal to jump.

“I need a verbal affirmative, Lieutenant,” Kazuya says, for the third time today. “Stand up and start over.”

He hears a sigh over the comm line and suppresses a chuckle as Furuya sulks back behind the yellow line painted on the platform.

“Get in position, Furuya.”

“Aye, Commander,” He says, stepping forward again and taking position.

“Louder, please.”

Another sigh. “Aye, Commander!”

Kazuya smirks, saying “Thank you~” in a sing-song voice under his breath before clapping his hands together as a sign for Furuya to jump. He lunges perfectly into the Zero-Grav field, keeping his limbs pinned together so he doesn’t slow his velocity. His trajectory puts him in the path of least resistance, quickly bypassing most of the debris. The few chunks he does come up against he gracefully maneuvers around using the thrusters attached to his boots. In the fastest time behind Miyuki, his feet touch down on the metal platform on the opposite wall.

After a stretch of silence, Furuya says, “Oh. I’ve landed safely, sir.”

Shaking his head, Kazuya replies, “Thank you, Furuya. Nice job. Use the perimeter ladder to come back to this side. We’re going to cycle through everyone again. Kuramochi, come spot me, I’m next.” He gestures behind him for Kuramochi to step up from where he was waiting at the front of the line. He clips his belt to the safety harness and claps Kazuya on the shoulder to signal he can unclip his.

Kazuya readies himself behind the yellow line, doing a couple quick hops to shake out any stiffness from spotting the previous round of jumps.

“You’re gonna show off again, aren’t you?” Kuramochi asks, bored.

“Maybe,” he replies with a smirk.

“Let’s get it over with then.” Kuramochi flicks his hand in a vague  _ shoo  _ motion. “Mark.”

“Approaching,” Kazuya says, stepping over the yellow line. Unlike Furuya and the rest of his crew, he readies himself a half-step back from the platform’s edge, fingertips on the ground and hips up, in a runner’s starting stance. “Set.”

At the sound of Kuramochi’s clap, Kazuya bursts forward on his right leg, and places his left foot on the edge of the platform as he passes over it, pushing forward for a second burst of speed before locking his legs together. He feels the tiny impacts of inconsequential debris tapping his helmet, but sees only a few chunks that will impede his direct path to the opposite platform. He rests his thumbs on the thruster controls attached to the palms of his suit in preparation for the first dodge, calm and focused.

Over his comm line, he hears a vague beeping. Kuramochi suddenly bursts to life, saying “Shit shit shit!” under his breath, which lets him know it’s Kuramochi’s medical alert that’s sounding. He’s being called back to the sickbay. 

Kazuya hears the strangest noise, then. A clang, like someone hitting bare piping with a wrench, reverberating loudly in his head. Then, undeniably, the worst pain he’s ever felt in his life. Searing, white-hot agony pulses through his head, faster and faster until its a steady stream bombarding him. He immediately loses all outward sense, his last sight of blood on the inside of his helmet pooling from his nose. His body goes limp, and he only vaguely registers slamming into the jagged piece of debris that he was about to dodge a moment ago. He knows this has to be the emotional storm set off from the survivor, who must have just woken up, but he was expecting some warning beforehand. Now, floating in Zero-Grav helplessly, he has no idea what to do but to succumb to the barrage of despair. He screams, a ragged sound tearing out from his throat over and over, the only relief he can find for the misery too strong to stay inside of him. Then he cries, his body convulsing with a torrent of unforgiving sobs, barely able to breathe. Foreign emotions spill from him in any way they can find. Anger causes him to lash out, punching and kicking madly, not physically present enough to know if he’s making contact with anything. He finds himself completely silent and still a few times, numb to everything, before another wave crashes over him and the cycle begins anew. These emotions have no attachment to Kazuya. He is completely at the mercy of another person’s anguish, suddenly only a passenger in his own body, unable to put up any kind of a fight.

Drowning, he waits. There’s nothing else he can do but feel.

 

\--

 

Eijun wakes up for the third time, still crying. He stares straight up at the bright hospital lights, making no move to wipe the tears streaming down his cheeks, instead letting them steadily drip into his ears and onto his pillow. 

_ Gone. Dead. Alone. Why only me? Can’t even have proper funerals. Funerals plural. Funerals because they’re all dead...and they died so far from home, and I’ll never see them again, and I never got to say goodbye, and - _

Eijun is snapped out of his misery by a flurry of commotion to his left. He turns his head on his pillow to observe, and realizes he is not where he’d been when he’d last opened his eyes. His bed has been moved, and he is now laid next to an odd opaque partition that reaches from the floor to the ceiling. He doesn’t have a proper angle to see, but if he were to guess, it was shaped in a half-oval, curving around a bed like his own, and attaching to the wall on the other side. It looks sturdy, like it might just be an oddly shaped column in the sickbay instead of a partition, but Eijun can hear muffled voices coming from inside it which has him believing otherwise.

The commotion comes from quite a few voices, though none of them are understandable through the thick partition. They sound concerned from the general cadence, though. He wonders what’s happening. Is someone in there having a worse time that him?

_ No, there’s nothing worse than this,  _ he thinks, silent tears escaping.

The voices flare back up, and for a moment they grow exponentially louder, an indication that somewhere out of sight the partition has been opened and the sounds from inside are pouring out. A moment later, the sounds dampen as the partition is closed somewhere on the other side where Eijun can’t see.

A man strides over from behind the partition, spots Eijun, and smiles. “Hello,” he says.

Eijun swallows, and averts his eyes down to his lap. “Hi,” he responds, his voice raspy from crying for so long.

The man comes to stand beside Eijun, between his bed and the partition. He’s looking at the displays showing Eijun’s vitals when he asks, “Do you remember me?”

He turns to observe the man. He’s shorter than Eijun, with pale pink hair and an air of confidence about him. “No. There are a lot of doctors here,” he explains.

The man nods. “That’s alright. My name is Kominato Ryousuke. I’m a neurologist. I’m the one who put you in the coma you woke up from last night.” He smiles. “You did my job for me. A little earlier than I had planned, but I’m glad you’re awake.”

Eijun stares at him. “I was in a coma?”

Kominato’s mouth turns down in a frown. “You didn’t know?”

Eijun shakes his head, and looks around as though his surroundings were now some foreign place. “How long?”

“Eight days,” he answers.

He’s not sure how he should react to that information. He’s missed eight days of his life, but knowing what happened, he sort of wants to miss as many days as possible. He looks at his lap again. “Oh.”

“Hm,” Kominato says to himself, thinking. He turns and contemplates the partition behind him thoughtfully before turning back to Eijun. “Will you lay back for me, please?” Eijun nods, and settles more firmly back into his pillow, tugging the thin sheet up. As he’s doing this, Kominato says, “I want you to count down from one hundred aloud, and I want you to try to avoid going to sleep.”

“Isn’t that how you make someone go to sleep?” Eijun asks, confused. “Like counting sheep?”

“Yes. That’s why I want you to focus hard on  _ not _ going to sleep while counting,” Kominato says, then taps Eijun lightly on the forehead. “You’ve got a lot going on up here that’s hurting you. I just want you to focus on counting, alright? When things start getting to be too much, just start counting back from 100 again. I promise it helps.”

“Why not just have me sleep, though? It’s easier to forget that way,” he says, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Kominato hums and and bends down to grab a cord hanging off the side of the bed, which has a small control attached to the end of it. “The mind wanders to all sorts of unpredictable places when you’re sleeping.” He pushes a button on the control and the bed starts slowly lifting Eijun into a sitting position. It moves up until he’s almost at a 90 degree angle before it stops. “We don’t want that to happen.”

“Um...okay,” Eijun says, uncomfortable in the new position.

“You’ve been asleep for a long time, Sawamura. Try to stay awake,” he says. Then he grins, and his expression, to Eijun’s horror, is clearly annoyed. “Now, I’m going to hunt down your primary doctor and choke him for not letting you know you were comatose. He’ll be with you shortly.”

With that, the doctor turns on his heel and struts out of Eijun’s line of sight with purpose. He supposes the annoyance isn’t aimed at him, but this primary doctor of his.

“Thanks,” he says to no one, and begins counting down from one hundred, feeling a little foolish but content to have something to focus on besides his own tumultuous thoughts.

 

\--

 

For the third time, Kazuya wakes all at once, like he was never asleep. He sits up in his hospital bed and absently wipes tears off his face with his palms.

Ryou is sitting at the end of his bed, swiveling on a stool. “Morning,” he says with a smug grin.

Kazuya rolls his eyes and reaches over to the side table next to him, grabbing a hypospray syringe out of a haphazard pile of them. “This sucks,” he says, and presses the hypo behind his ear three times in succession before tossing it back into the pile.

“You knew it was going to be bad,” Ryou replies, shrugging. 

He sighs. “This just feels...excessive. There’s been plenty of trauma patients on this ship. Why is he affecting me this badly?”

Ryou shrugs again. “Could be any number of reasons. Maybe he just feels more than the rest of us.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Kazuya mutters, kneading his temple to alleviate pain from the constant headache he’s had since this all began. He swings his legs off the bed and stands, reaching his arms up in a stretch. He’d only been asleep for 3 hours, but his body feels like it’s been through hell. “How’s he doing? What was his name again?”

“Sawamura Eijun. He’s doing well, all things considered. Struggling a bit with memory recall, but that’ll go away in a day or so. His nightmares are affecting you more than his conscious thoughts at this point, which is a good sign.” Ryou stands with him and strides over as he talks. Once Kazuya lowers his arms to his sides, he gestures for him to tilt his chin down. A pin light is shone into each of Kazuya’s eyes, and then he’s run through a few simple memory tests to make sure he’s not skipping time. His sleeping and waking hours are all being dictated by Sawamura’s emotions at this stage, and he’s confined to the small temporary psy-null pop-up partition with no windows, so keeping his perception of time linear is important.

“Does he know about me yet?” Kazuya asks, avoiding Ryou’s eyes.

“No,” he says, sitting back down on the stool, “Kuramochi is coming to talk with him about you in a few minutes. Well, about this whole situation I suppose. Once we get him calm, you can come out and meet him.”

Kazuya looks at the partition. He knows this Sawamura Eijun is on the other side. He burns with the want to help him, in any way he can, but instead he’s stuck inside this tiny bathroom-sized room until they can find some equilibrium with each other. His own guilt and shame mixed with Sawamura’s grief is proving very difficult to navigate, and his thoughts feel disjointed.

A few minutes pass and then there’s a light knock on the partition door. Ryou opens it up, and just like the other times it’s been opened, Kazuya’s head throbs with the strong wave of emotions brought on by breaking the psy-null barrier. He hisses in pain as Ryou steps out and reseals the entrance, presumably to chat with Sawamura alongside Kuramochi. He hears the muffled baritone of several voices on the other side of the partition, but can make no distinction. All he can do is wait anxiously to meet Sawamura, the man he saved, and for Sawamura to meet Kazuya, the man who let his family die.

 

\--

 

Counting down from one hundred gets boring pretty quickly. At first Eijun thought he should just choose a higher number to count down from, but that was equally as boring, it just took longer. By the time he’s approached again by another unfamiliar doctor, he’s practicing counting down in English, which is at least challenging enough to keep him awake. The doctor actually looks like he’s going to walk past Eijun, but pauses in front of his bed to ask, “You speak English?”

Eijun stares at him for a moment, deciphering the phrase, before quickly shaking his head and answering in Standard, “Not really, only Japanese and Standard.”

The doctor puts on an exaggerated pout and replies in Standard, “Aw, too bad. No one around here speaks it besides the asshole I’ve got locked up in this thing.” He points to the partition. “And sometimes I just want to talk in my native language to someone that  _ isn’t _ an asshole for once. I’ll be right back.” With that, he continues past Eijun and he hears him knock on the partition. A moment later, he returns with the other doctor, Kominato, and pulls up a short rolling stool to sit on. He unclips the PADD attached to the side of his bed with his medical status on it, then eyes Eijun. “Hi,” he says.

“Uh...hi,” Eijun replies.

“Ryou here says you’ve been having some memory recall issues. I’m gonna ask you a few questions. If you don’t know the answer that’s fine, just tell me if you don’t, alright?”

Eijun nods.

“Alright. What’s my name?”

Eijun stares blankly at the man, confused. He’s never met him before.

“I don’t know.”

The doctor swivels a bit to look back at Kominato, whose expression doesn’t change. He faces Eijun again.

“That’s fine. My name is Kuramochi Youichi. I’m the chief medical officer on this ship and I’ll be your primary doctor for as long as you’re aboard.”

“Nice to meet you,” he replies. He stares at the man a minute before asking, “Are you...Romulan?”

Kuramochi raises an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“You’re eyebrows,” Eijun explains, gesturing, “They point up. I guess you could be Vulcan too, but you don’t act very Vulcan.”

Kominato covers his mouth with his hand and lets out a small laugh. “Very astute observation, but he’s just a human trying to look cooler than he is.” Kuramochi swivels to glare at him before turning back to Eijun again, coughing loudly.

“ _ Next _ question. What is your name?”

“Sawamura Eijun.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty four.”

“What’s your date of birth?”

“May 15th.”

“Year of birth?”

Eijun begins to answer, then pauses. What year was he born in again? “Um...2291...I think.”

Kuramochi checks the PADD information again and nods. “Yep, and look at that! We were born almost exactly a year apart from each other. I’m May 17th 2290.”

“You’re really young to be a chief medical officer!” Eijun says, surprised. Kominato laughs again. Kuramochi gives Eijun a pointed look. 

“If you weren’t my patient, I’d kick you for that.”

For the first time since he’s woken up, Eijun laughs. It’s a small thing, but it dampens the flood of grief just slightly. They go through a long list of mundane questions, the rest of which Eijun can recall, only stumbling on a few. Kuramochi lets him know that it’s mostly his short-term memory that’s been affected, and that should right itself with time. There are a couple gaps in his long-term memory that they’re going to look into again at a later date, but he’s told not to worry about it for now.

“Now for the weird part,” Kuramochi says, and thumbs over his shoulder at the partition. “Remember that asshole I was telling you about? He’s half-Betazoid, half-human. He can’t read your thoughts, but he  _ can _ sense other people’s emotions like they were his own. And you, my friend,” he says, voice softening, “are very emotional right now. Every emotion you’re experiencing, the grief, the hurt, the sadness, it’s all affecting him just as badly as it’s affecting you. Worse, from what we’ve seen, but we can’t quite figure that part out yet. This thing we have him in softens the emotional transference enough that he doesn’t black out, but he’s extremely compromised even under these conditions.”

Kominato chimes in, “We’re not asking you to suppress your emotions. That’s unhealthy  _ and  _ unethical. We just don’t want you to be stuck inside your negative emotions forever. Everyone who works closely with our lovely Commander in there, us included, has gone through training to control and channel their emotions so they come and go fluidly without spiking and putting him in danger.”

“That seems kind of selfish, though,” Eijun says, “To make everyone do that for his sake.”

Kuramochi gives him a stern look that shuts him up. “No one  _ made _ us do it. He’s someone we respect. He’s saved more lives than any individual on this ship. His physiology is just different from ours. He’d work through all our emotions by brute force if he had to, but we have the means to let him work without our emotional interference, so we use it. Because we respect him. He’s not just our commanding officer by rank. We know without a doubt that he puts our lives before his.”

“A lot of us wouldn’t still be here today, if not for him,” Kominato finishes.

Eijun nods, turning to look at the partition. “He sounds...important.”

Kuramochi rolls his eyes and scoffs. “Just don’t tell him that.”

“You’re calm right now, so we’d like you to meet with him for a few minutes. We need you two exposed to each other so we can try to understand why his reaction is so strong. Are you alright with that?” Kominato asks.

“Yeah, but is he going to be okay?” He doesn’t want to hurt this man in front of these people who respect him! 

“He’s tougher than you’d think,” Kominato says, turning and walking to the other side of the partition, presumably to fetch the Commander.

Kuramochi reaches into a deep pocket in his white coat and brings out a hypospray. “I’m giving you a light sedative,” he says, injecting it into the crook of his elbow, “to help keep you calm. It’ll wear off in a few hours, but I’d suggest sleeping after this.” 

As Eijun nods, Kominato returns with a very tired looking man about his age. He has disheveled looking brown hair like he’s just woken up, and although he’s avoiding eye contact, Eijun sees the distinctive pitch black eyes Betazoids are known for having behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.

“Man of the hour. Sawamura, this is Miyuki Kazuya, Commanding Officer of MEES team Alpha.” Kuramochi gestures dramatically, and the man stares off into the middle distance, clearly annoyed at the doctor.

“Whoa,” Eijun says, eyes growing round in surprise, “Miyuki  _ Kazuya _ ?”

Pausing mid-dramatic-gesture, Kuramochi looks back at Eijun. “Huh? Wait, do you know him?”

He looks at Miyuki Kazuya. Miyuki Kazuya finally looks at him. “No, it’s just…it’s a famous name.” He looks at the three of them, but there’s no recognition in their faces. “You know, Miyuki Kazuya? The famous catcher?”

“Catcher?” Miyuki Kazuya asks, speaking for the first time. His voice sounds rough, like he’d been screaming. Thinking back to what the doctors had told him, he might have been.

“Baseball catcher,” Eiju clarifies. Miyuki looks at Kuramochi in confusion.

“It’s an Earth sport. This one,” he says, and then mimes the swinging of a bat. Miyuki nods after a moment.

“Right,” he says, “Well, sorry to disappoint, but I’m not him. I’ve never played baseball. Not much of a sports fan.”

“Of course you’re not him, Miyuki Kazuya is a historical figure from hundreds of years ago! I can’t believe you share a name with  _ the _ Miyuki Kazuya and you don’t even know about baseball!”

“I uh, I take it you’re a fan.”

“Of course! I share a name with a famous baseball player too! A pitcher named Sawamura Eijun. Obviously I had to live up to his name, so I became a pitcher just like him! I’m not famous like he was though, I only play on my neighborhood team for fun after work. Sawamura Eijun and Miyuki Kazuya were on the same team, you know,” he says matter-of-factly. 

“Spooky,” says Kuramochi, grinning. “That’s a pretty big coincidence.”

“Yeah,” says Miyuki, beginning to massage his temples. Kuramochi gets up to stand beside him.

“You doing alright?”

 

\--

 

That noise again. The same noise from the Zero-Grav room.  _ Clang. Clang. Clang.  _ Kazuya’s ears are ringing with it. There’s no pattern to it, they just get louder and louder as time passes. He rubs his temples, trying to focus on the conversation.

“You doing alright?” Kuramochi asks.

Right then, a pain shoots through him unlike anything he’s felt before. He falls down on one knee as his vision distorts at the edges.

“Whoa there,” he hears Kuramochi say calmly, and a hypo is pressed behind his ear right after. It has no effect.

Distantly he can hear Ryou saying, “I need you to calm down, Sawamura.”

“But I am calm! At least, I think I am! Am I doing that to him?”

Before Ryou answers, Kazuya grits his teeth through the pain and says and strangled, “No.”

“No?”

“ ‘s different. Not...emotional,” he says, unable to explain what’s happening to him any further. He feels himself go limp on the cool linoleum floor.

_ Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.  _

 

\--

 

Kazuya wakes to silence, the remnants of a headache dragging him from sleep. He removes his eye mask and stares up at nothing for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

_ I’m back in my bedroom _ , he thinks vaguely.

Then he thinks,  _ Wait. Back from what? I was here all night. _

_ Clang. _

He reaches a hand out and grabs blindly for his glasses until he finds them and slips them on his face. He looks over to his left at the empty bed across from his, sheets all messed up.

_ Did they move Sawamura somewhere else? No, wait, this is my room. Why would Sawamura be in here? _

_ Clang. Clang. _

“Ugh,” he moans, “that noise is killing me.” He reaches his hand to his side table again, trying to locate his hypospray.

_ What’s a hypospray? _

He stops his movement, wondering what he’s doing. His mind comes up blank. “Huh.”

_ Clang. _

Sitting up, he looks around his room and feels uneasy. Everything is familiar, nothing has  _ changed _ , but his mind is all fogged up.

_ Clang. _

“Oh,” he says, finally recognizing the noise. It’s coming from outside, not inside his head. “Oh, shit!”

He scrambles out of bed, grabbing at his strewn-about uniform on the ground and pulling it on in record time, hopping awkwardly when one of the pant legs gets tangled. Grabbing his belongings, he rushes out the door and sprints.

_ Clang. Clang. Clang. _

Batting practice started 15 minutes ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🙊


End file.
